About Me

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Edge. On the edge of despair, lost our edge, clean your edges, on the edge of a cliff, the edge of a razor, edge. Don't lose your edge. I think we've lost our edge. Edge. What is that anyway? The good side of life? When you lose your edge what have you really lost? Have you lost your ability to believe that the next day will be better than today? Have you lost a precious gift? It sounds so ominous, so final. Like, if you lose your edge you will never find it and you will pine its loss forever. Edge.

Today was an edge losing day. Edge was floating around like butterflies and we were trying to catch them with no apparent success. Edge was the illusive butterfly. So when you lose your edge what happens? Will you know it when it's gone? Will it hurt? Or will it be one of those comforting things that just takes you into a life of "less than we were" without us knowing? Edge. How important is it? Is it Godly?

Jed thinks he's lost his edge. This is so very sad. This man has lived on the edge his whole life. Even his father called him, "The master of modern living." And if Jed thinks he's lost his edge he's saying to me that he's lost the essence of himself. (Like Jackie Draper in "Puff the Magic Dragon".) I'm an elementary school teacher and a romantic to boot, so my life story will wrap around children's stories and songs.

One month before the accident Jed took the grown grandkids skiing and snowboarding. Jed was a snowboarder (probably the oldest on the slopes.) On the slopes your edges are very important. But it isn't just the equipment that has to work. It is the boarder. The boarder has to make a decision to dig in the edges when the time is right, and release them at other times for the best ride.

It's not much different now. He has not lost his edge. It's just a day to release them and let the slope take us where it will. Having life experiences is good to be able to reflect and gain perspective. Edge is good. Edge is controlable. Edge gives us the sharpness of life but we can't be there always or we simply would crash and die.

2 comments:

I was thinking about you the other day and wondering if you'd ever read the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People. It's by a rabbi who lost his son to that horrible aging disease. He struggled with his faith afterward, and the result was the book. Hang in there, old friend.

yeah, I read the book, almost devoured it, when mom died. It formed lots of my beliefs. Made things much more clear. Shit happens and you deal with it the best you can knowing that somewhere, somehow, there is something better, bu you will be given strength to go on. Something like that. Good to talk to you today, ole buddy. You're one of those gifts that keep me going.